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The Milanese Leaves of the Skeireins Under Ultraviolet Radiation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

William H. Bennett
William H. Bennett*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana
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Extract

Four leaves of the Skeireins (I, II, V, VII) are preserved in the Bibli-oteca Ambrosiana, Milan, under Sig. E 147 parte superiore. VI, which also belongs to this group, has been missing since 1943. In August of that year Milan underwent heavy bombing, in which thirteen halls of the Ambrosiana were wrecked, ten others hit, and some 80,000 volumes reduced to ashes. Though the Gothic palimpsests of the Ambrosian collection were moved to insure their safety, the sixth leaf of the Skeireins disappeared unaccountably, and all attempts to find it have been unavailing.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 65 , Issue 6 , December 1950 , pp. 1263 - 1281
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1950

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References

1 The present investigation has been made possible through the cooperation of Msgr. Giovanni Galbiati, Prefect of the Ambrosiana, who has provided fluorescent-type ultraviolet photographs of I, n, v, and vn; Publications in Medieval Studies, which has supported the work by a grant extended through the general editor, Dr. Philip S. Moore, C.S.C.; and Dr. Alberto Pescetto, who has helped greatly in negotiations with the Ambrosiana.

2 Photographs of several halls before and after the bombing appear in The Ambrosiana Library and Gallery, a booklet edited and published (n.d.) by Erminio Turcotti for the Friends of the Ambrosiana, 2 Piazza della Rosa, Milan.

3 The following versions of the text will be designated by the names of the editors: Ernst Bernhardt, Vulfila oder die gotische Bibel (Halle, 1875).

———; Vie gotische Bibel des Vulfila (Halle, 1884).

E. H. A. Cromhout, Skeireins aivaggeljons pairh Iohannen (Delft, 1900).

Ernst Dietrich, “Die Bruchstiicke der Skeireins”, Texte und Untersuchungen sur allger-manischen Religionsgeschichte, ed. Fr. Kauffmann, II (Strassburg, 1903).

H. C. von der Gabelentz and J. Löbe, Ulfilas, II (Leipzig, 1843-46).

Moritz Heyne, Friedrich Ludwig Stamm's Ulfilas, 8th and 9th eds. (Paderborn and Münster, 1885, 1896).

Ernst A. Kock, Die Skeireins (Lund, 1913).

Jakob Lundgren, Skeireins aivaggeljons bairh Iohannen (Upsala, 1860).

H. F. Massmann, Skeireins aiwaggeljons pairh Iohannen (Munich, 1834).

——-, Ulfilas: Die gothischen Sprachdenkmöler (Stuttgart, 1857).

Erich Mayr, Die Skeireins (Munich, 1913).

Fernand Mossé, Manuel de la langue gotique (Paris, 1942), containing I-II only.

W. Streitberg, Die gotische Bibel, I, 2d. ed. (Heidelberg, 1919), with the same Skeireins text as that of the 1908 edition. Alexander Vollmer, Die Bruchstiicke der Skeireins (Munich, 1862).

H. G. van der Waals, Skeireins aiwaggeljons pairh Iohannen (Leyden, 1892).

Wilhelm Wackernagel, Gotische und altsàchsische Lesestu)cke (Basel, 1871), containing III-V only.

F. Wrede, Stamm-Heyne's Ulfilas, 13th-14th ed. (Paderborn, 1920), with the Skeireins text of the 1908 edition.

4 Codex readings will be indicated by abbreviations:

B = W. Braun, “Die Mailânder Blatter der Skeireins”, ZfdPh., xxxi (1899), 429-451.

C = C. O. Castiglione, according to the Gabelentz-Lobe edition (see note 3, above), VI cd, which will not be considered here, appears in quasi-facsimile in Castiglione and A. Maj, Ulphilae partium ineditarum specimen (Milan, 1819), p. 24. An ordinary photograph of vi cd forms the frontispiece of Dietrich's 1903 text.

M=facsimile in Massmann's first edition (see note 3), pp. 3-34.

U=A. Uppström, Fragmenta gothica selecta (Upsala, 1861), pp. 14-45.

5 Cf. Hugo Andersson, Appendix, Codex Argenteus Upsaliensis Iussu Senatus Univer-sitatis photolypice edilus (Upsala, 1927), pp. 119-125 and reff.; L. Bendikson, “A New Type of Ultra-Violet Light Source for Documentary Photography”, Lib. Jour., lix (1934), 690-692, and “A Cycle of Ultra-Violet Light Sources for Various Uses”, ibid., LXI (1936), 16 f.; Niel F. Beardsley, “The Photography of Altered and Faded Manuscripts” torn, cit., 96-99 and reff.

6 See Andersson, pp. 120, 122, and Beardsley, 97 f.

7 Line negatives and contact prints have been made with the following equipment: a large commercial copying camera using a Zeiss Apo-Tessar lens 1:9 (f=45 cm.) at f 22 and a scale of 2:1 with an exposure ranging from 20 to 35 seconds; two arc lamps using 220 V at 25 amp.; Eastman Kodalith Film, Type 2, and Fine Line Developer; no. 5 AZO single weight paper, printed from 5 to 180 seconds with lighting of 100-160 W; and Kodak D 72 Developer.

8 This conclusion is advanced specifically by K. Marold, Die Sckriflcitate ier Skeireins uni ihre Bedeutung für die Textgeschichle der gotischen Bibel (Königsberg, 1892), p. 6.

9 Germania, X (1865), 226 f.

10 The problem under consideration is basically paleographical, but its doctrinal implications hardly can be overlooked. The Skeireinist indicates clearly that he believes in the existence of both free will and sin. To suppose that the Devil had forced man to break the divine law would not only deny man the exercise of free will but would also absolve him of responsibility in the matter.

11 A dative, not a genitive, is required here, but the final j of garehsnais is unmistakeable and has not been cancelled. Perhaps the scribe unconsciously repeated the ending of the preceding word daupeinais.

12 Dietrich's text, which was first published without explanatory notes in 1900, retains jutoaparamma on p. 10, but this form is rejected in favor of juhaparamme(h) on p. 26 of the notes accompanying his complete edition of 1903.

13 AfdA., XX (1895), 161.

14 See Dietrich, p. xix, fn. 25.

15 Page 449.